


Resolute in Resurrection

by firefright



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Fusion - The Old Guard, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Frenemies, Immortality, M/M, Post-Forever Evil (Comics), Resurrection, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27334660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: It's rare that a new immortal is born. Rarer still, that they already have a prior relationship with an existing one at the time. Dick has no idea what it is that's happened to him, but Slade is absolutely going to make sure he finds out.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson
Comments: 37
Kudos: 279
Collections: SladeRobin Week 2020





	Resolute in Resurrection

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is my final piece for the 2020 SladeRobin week, and is written for the Free Day, meaning I could basically write whatever I wanted. Which, in this case, is a crossover with The Old Guard that's been buzzing around in my head ever since I watched the movie. Only vague references are made to the characters from the movie itself, and everything else about the rules of immortality in that universe are explained pretty well in the fic, so if you haven't seen the film, don't worry (however I would still heavily recommend checking it out if you haven't, it's on Netflix and just a really fun watch). 
> 
> ~~Also, for the sake of having the story make sense and because I hated it, Bruce and Dick didn't have their big punch up in the Bat Cave like they did in the canon post-Forever Evil story here. You'll see why when you read it.~~
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s late when Dick reaches the motel. The one Bruce specified and booked ready for him on his way out here. It’s perfectly nondescript, cut from the same cloth as any one of a thousand others spread out across America. Bland walls, bland doors. A yawning teenager behind the front desk hands him his key without a word or any recognition, and Dick slumps back out to the room that’s to be his for the night with a sense of relief he’s not sure he’s actually allowed to feel.

When he thinks about it, his heart still aches inside his chest. His neck hurts with the memory of a lasso around it, and his limbs are frozen in the cold metal embrace of the Murder Machine.

He was only dead—heart stopped, not breathing—for a minute, but in the late hours of the night, it sometimes feels like a lifetime. That’s when he’s not sleeping. And when he does sleep…

Well, that’s a whole other topic he doesn’t care to think about.

Rubbing his eyes, Dick skirts along the row of old pickups and SUVs parked outside until he finds the right door number. It’s on the ground floor, which is good, and even better, is the furthest from the motel’s reception. Uncharacteristic as it is, he doesn’t think he has it in him to even climb a set of stairs right now.

The key slides smoothly into the lock, turns just as easily. Pushing open the door, Dick lets out a relieved sigh before stepping over the threshold, dropping the duffel bag on his shoulder as soon as he’s safely inside. The only thing he wants right now is bed and a shower, not necessarily in that order, and after switching on the nearest light only after the door is safely locked behind him again, looks around the room to see which direction the bathroom is in, not noticing that he isn’t alone in the room until it’s already too late.

Armour. Black and orange. Tall. Far taller than any man has the right to be. Dick’s breath catches in his throat as Deathstroke stalks towards him. It’s been a while, and his head spins with the knowledge that Slade’s somehow been able to find him here, when no one else on Earth other than Bruce and Alfred are even supposed to know he’s alive.

Sloppy. Far too sloppy. Dick lifts his hands, opening his mouth to try and stall that predatory stride, unsure what he’s done to deserve it. “Slade, wait! Whatever you’re doing here, we can—”

Then his eyes catch on the glint of cold metal in Slade’s hand, his ears ring with the click of the safety coming off, and all other words die in his throat.

He wouldn’t. He’d never...

_BANG._

* * *

Dick wakes up to a damp stained ceiling, the most tremendous headache he’s ever felt in his life, and a supreme sense of confusion as to how he got here. Of course, being Bat-trained, he’s not unused to waking up in pain and in strange places, but at least most of the time he has a better recollection of how he arrived at that point.

 _It’s fine_ , he thinks, over the slight rise of panic that follows the realisation. _It’s fine_. _Just do as Bruce taught you, focus._

He was leaving Gotham. Sent out, by Bruce, on another impossible mission. One only he could apparently do now that he was presumed dead by most of the world, following the exposure of his secret identity by the Crime Syndicate. A spy agency, Spyral, has goals that will put most of the Superhero community in danger. Dick’s purpose is to infiltrate and stop them.

No matter how much it hurt to leave his home, and his friends and family, behind.

So far, so good. He’d made great time on leaving Gotham, driving all day and most of the night to meet up with the contact Bruce had arranged to give him his in to the agency. But being only human, he’d eventually had to pull over for food and sleep. So he’d come here to this motel—yes, he’s in a motel, _good_ —opened the door to his room, and then…

“Slade!” Dick jerks upwards, wads of his hair and the back of his head trying to stick to the carpeted floor as he does. His headache pounds harder, something small and metallic drops down in front of his face, but it’s nothing compared to the sudden panicked beating of his heart and the name on his lips.

Slade… Slade was here. Slade holding a gun. Slade—

_Slade shot him._

“Easy, kid,” a deep, familiar voice rumbles, “I’m right here.”

Dick’s whole body goes rigid, and he honestly feels like he might be on the edge of having the kind of episode he hasn’t had for years now. Not since Tarantula, not since... Stiffly, he manages to turn his head, looking towards the bed and the man on it.

Slade is still wearing his armour, but his mask is removed, showing off handsome features and white hair to their fullest. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, leant forwards, arms draped over his knees, and in a way it rarely is unless they’re fighting each other (or otherwise engaged), his attention seems entirely focused on Dick, blue eye looking nowhere else.

“Finally,” he says, tilting his head slightly while Dick continues to stare at him, “Took you long enough.”

“You…” Dick breathes, voice shaking, “You shot me. You…”

His hand flies to his forehead, and when he pulls his fingers away again they’re tacky with blood.

“ _What_ …”

“Easy,” Slade hums, still watching him, “Just breathe.”

Breathe, he says. Breathe like Slade didn’t just shoot him. Like he doesn’t still have the gun that did it lying casually next to him on the bed.

There’s no way this can be real. It has to be a trick. A rubber bullet, replaced by a real one while he was down. Fake blood, liberally spread to make it feel genuine. Dick swallows hard as he tries to gather himself, his tired mind stretching for reason where there shouldn’t be any. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why Slade would do this—lying in wait for Dick and making this elaborate setup. It’s not like him at all.

“I know what you’re doing,” Slade tuts, as if reading his mind, “You’re trying to figure this out. The how and the why. You’re trying to make it be anything but what it is.”

“What it is…” Dick echoes, almost absently at first. Then, just like that, the confusion and upset he’s feeling gives way to boiling anger. “What it _is_?! You mean you ambushing me in the middle of nowhere, pretending to shoot me and then setting up a crime scene while I was unconscious? What the hell, Slade!”

He stands up. Or at least attempts to, legs wobbling under him a way that has him leaning against the nearby wall for support. It’s not that he feels weak, exactly, just that his head is still pounding—though even that is fading fast.

“Hm,” Slade grunts, watching this, “Should’ve known going for the headshot would be too fast for you to comprehend.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

Dick has precisely two seconds to realise what’s about to happen before it’s too late. Slade takes the gun up from the mattress (the muzzle covered by a silencer, he now notices), points, aims, and though Dick tries desperately to dive and roll to the left, he is far too slow to avoid it.

 _Pain_. It rips through his stomach and out of his back, red hot and excruciating. He hits the floor, cries out, then sobs as his hands fly to press against the hole in his body now gushing out blood. This… this is _real_. This is…

“Fuck, Slade!” he chokes, trying desperately to stem the blood flow, not that it’ll help much with it also going out his back. A stomach wound isn’t just lethal, it’s cruel. It could take hours for him to die like this, unless he gets surgery fast, and he—

“Why?! Why are you doing this? What did I do? What did...”

“Shh, kid. Easy now.” So consumed with the pain, Dick didn’t realise Slade is already off the bed and beside him. Big hands slide under his shoulders, lifting him up, and he screams again at the pressure it puts against the wound before he’s being cradled against a broad chest. “I know it hurts, but it won’t for long.”

“Because you’ve killed me?!” he snaps, lashes out, and despite everything, attempts to drive his elbow into Slade’s chest. “Got to hell! I thought you… I thought we…”

Slade weathers the blow with nothing more than a light grunt. Then his hand is seizing Dick’s over the wound, pulling it away. “ _No_ , because soon there won’t be a wound to worry about. Look,”

Dick doesn’t want to look. He wants to spit and claw. Take out Slade’s other eye for good measure before he goes. But Slade has always been an inexorable force, and refusing him now is more than Dick is capable of. He makes him look, pulling Dick’s shirt up his ribs until the ugly truth of the bullet wound is laid bare. And it—

Dick blinks, stares. “What…”

“You see?” Slade murmurs. “The bleeding’s already stopping.”

Dick sees, but he doesn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. He felt the bullet rip through him; hard metal, vicious and real. Yet…

Slade is right. The wound is not bleeding nearly as much as it should be, and even as Dick watches, he can see the flow come to a stop completely, as well as feel the pain in his gut start to lighten. Less screaming agony, more the sharp stab of an upset stomach, and then finally, a low ache. The skin around the hole also starts to knit together, right before his eyes, healing with the kind of speed Dick’s only seen in metahumans before, and he doesn’t understand it.

He doesn’t _understand_.

“W-what… Slade, what...?”

Slade pushes him to sit up properly, no longer leaning against his chest, and Dick is surprised to find he can do so without any discomfort at all. It’s almost like he never got shot in the first place, which is impossible. As if in a trance, he reaches down, touching his stomach with his hands. All he finds there is smooth skin now, not even a scar, with the only remaining evidence being the hole torn in his shirt and the bloodstains.

“Fuck.”

“If you’re going to throw up,” Slade says, watching him carefully, “tell me now so I can get a bucket ready.”

Dick swallows. Now that Slade’s mentioned it, he is feeling rather queasy. And cold. And shaken, to the point there are small tremors running through his hands. “I think that might depend on what your answer is.”

Slade scoffs, but it’s an amused sound, rather than derisive. Standing up, he goes to a corner of the room, retrieving a small trash can and bringing it back to place in front of Dick, before kneeling down at his side again. “You’re immortal, kid.”

Dick blinks, hearing the words but not really absorbing them. “What?”

“I said, you’re immortal. Meaning you can’t die.”

“Yeah, I know what the word means.” Dick says, a flash of irritation cutting through his shock. “But I’m not—I can’t be.”

“I just shot you twice in the last ten minutes, once through the head, then the stomach. Both should have been kill shots, yet here you are, still breathing.” Slade doesn’t so much as blink at his response. “You can’t deny the evidence in front of your eyes, kid.”

“I’ve been shot before,” Dick still says, trying to do just that, “And I never healed from those bullets like this.”

“That’s because you needed to die first for it to activate.”

“I needed to—” Before he realises it, Dick laughs. “I… what? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? I had to die to become immortal? To gain the magic ability to heal from bullets? What the fuck. No! No, this is… this is you up to something. You’ve done something to me. You have to have. The same serum you got or… fuck, I don’t know.”

Slade sighs, rolling his eye beside him. “And why would I do that?”

“Because you’re you?!” Dick snaps, the queasiness roiling through his stomach again. With one hand, he reaches out, fumbling for the trash can. “Because… oh Christ.”

He dry heaves, stomach making aborted motions that have him curling forwards over the can and bile burning the back of his throat, but nothing more than that. Not yet, anyway.

Slade sighs again, before his hand settles on Dick’s back, rubbing surprisingly gentle circles between his shoulder blades. “I know exactly how crazy it sounds, kid. I also know it doesn’t make any damn sense, but that’s the way it is. That’s the way it’s always been for people like us.”

“People like us?” Dick repeats, trying to swallow down the unpleasant feeling in his throat.

“Not a coincidence that I knew where to find you, especially considering the rest of the world thinks you’re dead.”

Well that explained exactly nothing. Dick groans, hugging the trash can a little tighter, even though he’s relatively sure he’s not actually going to vomit now. “Try and be more confusing, why don’t you.”

Slade snorts, hand no longer rubbing Dick’s back but still resting, firm and heavy, against his spine. “Not trying to be confusing, kid. It’s just the way it is.”

He goes quiet for a moment, long enough for Dick to take the initiative and turn his head to look up at him. He finds Slade’s expression contemplative, like he’s trying to parse out the right words to get his point across and struggling. Not that he’d ever admit such a thing should Dick ask him.

“Come on, get up onto the bed. I’m done trying to explain things to you on the floor.”

Normally, Dick would try to kick up a fuss just to annoy him, say something like how it’s Slade’s fault he’s down here in the first place, but right now he’s far too tired and confused. He allows Slade to pull him up, then guide him to sit on the edge of the mattress. It’s nice to be away from the drying blood on the carpet, at least.

A moment later, Slade sits beside him, his weight causing the bed to sink further and Dick to almost lean into his side before he rights himself. “You have any weird dreams lately, kid?”

Dick freezes, limbs suddenly rigid. “I…”

“Dreams of things that make no sense? Places and times you couldn’t possibly know about in such vivid detail?” Slade’s eye is a laser beam, boring through him. “Dreams perhaps featuring someone familiar?”

Dick says nothing, but in his mind’s eye he’s recalling things. Things that have haunted him in the middle of every night the past three weeks. Things that make no sense, frustrating and scaring him in equal measure. Different visions, different _lethal_ scenarios featuring different people, but one in particular stood out above all the rest.

A battlefield. Men in chainmail armour and long surcoats. Everything a deep slog of thick mud, stinking of piss, shit and blood. The screams of the dying, men and horses alike, as well the whistling of arrows and ring of metal against metal. And above all else, a man, tall, blonde and imposing, his surcoat white with a black cross on the front, barely visible through the filth now covering it. He held a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, the weapon just as familiar as the features of his face to Dick.

 _Slade_. Only Slade in a way Dick had never seen him before. In a way that was completely impossible.

And the worst part of it was— _is—_ that the dreams always end the same way. Slade, and the other people in them, die.

Slade hums knowingly at his lack of answer. “First time it happened to me, an arrow took me through the throat. I came back five times before I finally had the sense to pull it out. Five times, drowning on my own blood. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Dick swallows thickly, his hands shaking. “This is insane.”

“Three weeks ago, just after that freaky evil Justice League showed up, I started having a very interesting dream myself. Of you, hooked up to something they called the Murder Machine. Wayne was there, and Luthor. They were talking about how the machine was a bomb, hooked up to your heart, and the only way to disarm it was to kill you.”

Dick’s shaking worsens.

“Of course, Batman refused, determined as always to find another way, no matter how impossible the odds. You weren’t about to let other people die on your watch, though,” Slade continues, “And neither was Luthor. He made you swallow something, then he stopped your heart. You died, kid. Then you came back to life.”

“I came back to life because the thing Luthor made me swallow was a cardioplegia pill.” Dick finally finds it in him to protest, fighting past the memory of Luthor’s heavy gauntleted fist pressing over his mouth. “He paralysed the cardiac muscles around my heart, then gave me a shot of adrenaline. That’s the only reason I’m here now, not—”

“Your sudden magic ability to heal from bullets?” Slade raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure Luthor believed his plan worked as well. It probably would have too, except your own body beat the adrenaline to it first.”

“For God’s sake,” Dick leans forward, pushing his head into his hands. “You really expect me to believe this? That I’m some kind of immortal now. That I had to die for it to happen and that you… you’re one, too? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, kid,” Slade says, not batting an eyelid, “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“No,” Dick shakes his head again, making one last bid for sanity, “Everyone knows you got your powers from an experiment when you were in the military. There are records of it. Of you, Slade. Where you were born. Your childhood, your _family_.”

It doesn’t do him much good, as Slade once again answers without hesitancy, “You know as well as I do how easy it is to fake such things.”

“Adeline told me about the experiment they did on you. The serum. She was there when they did it and she hates you, she wouldn’t have lied to me about that. Not for you.”

For a moment, the air between them grows frosty, and Dick thinks he might have gone a step too far in bringing Adeline into this, except he doesn’t really care if he pisses Slade off. Not really. The man has already shot him twice tonight and he’s gotten better from it. What else could he possibly do to Dick now that’s worse?

“You’re right,” Slade says finally, “She wouldn’t lie to you for me. That part is true. I did take part in a military experiment and it did give me powers, but I only took the risk in the first place because I already knew it wouldn’t kill me.”

An answer for everything. He always has an answer for everything, of course he does. Pushing his head harder into his hands, Dick trembles, trying desperately to think of another logical argument he can make against this. Something better than the weak truth sitting at the core of him, which is simply, and painfully, that he doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t want to. He can’t deal with yet another upending of his life, not now.

“Come on, kid,” The softening in Slade’s voice is barely noticeable. Wouldn’t be at all, to someone who didn’t know him like Dick does. But he finds himself leaning into it nonetheless. “You’re smarter than this. You may not want to believe it, but you know I’m telling the truth. Stop trying to think your way out of the inevitable and listen to what your gut is telling you.”

Dick grimaces. As an aerialist, his gut had been the first thing he’d ever learned to trust as a child. That instinct that told you when to let go of the rope, when to twist and turn—to know when your partner was out there, ready and waiting to catch you. Even today, after years of walking at Bruce’s side and learning how to rely on his mind instead, it’s always gut feeling he returns to when every other path leads him to a dead end.

Except, of course, when it’s trying to tell him something he doesn’t want to know.

“It just doesn’t make any sense.” he whispers.

Slade snorts, “Tell me about it. Even the oldest of us don’t know how or why this happens. It just does.”

“Slade, can you…” Dick presses his fingers against his temples tightly. “Can you maybe just try and start at the beginning here? I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this before, but you’re really bad at explaining things to people.”

Slade’s amusement filters back into the air. “You saying that me shooting you didn’t effectively get my point across?”

“No, it really, really did. But now I’d also really appreciate it if you learned to use your words.”

Dick can practically hear Slade rolling his eye at him. “You sound like Billy.” he grunts, as if Dick will take that comment as anything other than a compliment, considering William Wintergreen is one of the few actual positive influences in Slade’s life. “But fine. From the beginning, or at least as close to it as I can get.”

Dropping his hands from his face, Dick sits up straight again, looking at Slade expectantly as he begins.

“It’s been going on for millenia. Far longer than I’ve been alive, at any rate. Certain people, for what reason no one knows, will die and then find themselves being resurrected. Usually it’s a violent death, but not always. From that point on they don’t age, and will heal rapidly from even the smallest wound. Presumably we can still die permanently in some ways, total destruction of the body or losing our heads, but for the most part we are completely immortal. At least up to a point.”

“Up to a point?” Dick prompts him further, trying to take the words in as much as he can.

“At some point, the healing runs out. Again, what triggers that no one knows. But it does. I think the oldest of us now is somewhere around six thousand years old, but there were others before her, they just didn’t last.”

“Six _thousand_ …” Dick’s eyes widen. Of course he knows of other immortals who are older, Vandal Savage for one, but how Savage gained his immortality is something they actually know, and if Savage was one of them, surely Slade would have mentioned it. “And how old are you?”

Slade hums for a moment, scratching at his beard. “Seven hundred, give or take a few years. I was born in the fourteenth century.”

Fourteenth century. Dick sucks hard on his teeth, thinking of the dream he’d had. “You were… what, some kind of knight?”

“Teutonic Knight.” Slade smirks. “Mercenaries.”

That name sounds familiar, and Dick resolves to look it up on wikipedia later. “Of course you were.” he responds dryly.

“What can I say, kid? I found my niche in the world early and stuck to it. It was a good gig, too. At least until I died.”

“Why, what happened then?”

“Oh you know, the usual for the time period. Accusations of witchcraft and pacts with the devil.” Slade shrugs. “Became prudent to get out and move on.”

Dick swallows. It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask what happened to Slade next, or the exact context of what he was doing when he died, why he was fighting, but instead he says, “Why did I dream of you? Why… why did you dream of me?”

“Hell if I know.” Slade answers, in a way that strangely disappoints a part of Dick. “It’s just another thing that happens as a part of this. Anytime a new immortal is born, we all dream of each other until we finally meet.”

“But you and I already know each other.” Dick answers confusedly.

“Tell that to whatever power is behind this.” Slade tilts his head, smirk widening. “Why, didn’t you want to see me?”

Now Dick rolls his eyes. “You shot me, Slade.”

“And you got better. There’s no need to be such a baby about it.”

“I am not being a—” Dick stops, breathes in deep, through his nose and out his mouth. Flipping out at Slade more than he already has won’t do him any good. At least not now. Later, maybe, once he’s got his head wrapped around everything a bit more, he’ll let Slade have it in force, but at this moment he wants more answers first. “Asshole.”

“It was the quickest way for me to get you to believe. And even then, I still had to sit down and hammer the truth through that thick skull of yours. If I’d just come in here trying to talk, you never would have taken any of it in.” Slade looks intently down at him. “Am I right or am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” Dick admits reluctantly. Without concrete evidence, of course he wouldn’t have believed such an insane notion. Nor would he have believed if Slade tried to demonstrate it on himself instead, since the man’s healing powers were something he already attributed to the serum he’d been given. “You’re still an asshole, though.”

Slade only chuckles, leaving it up to Dick to nudge the conversation forward to the next part.

“So how did a fourteenth century mercenary knight end up as a supervillain in America?”

“Supervillain? Please.” Slade says, with his usual disdain for the division of morals. “I’m just a man who’s good at his job, that’s all. As for your question, that’s a long story I don’t particularly care to tell in full right now.”

“Just give me the abridged version, then.” Dick says, then when Slade looks like he’s about to say no again, adds, “Consider it an apology for shooting me. _Twice_.”

“Your negotiation skills need work, kid. That’s a damn cheap price.”

“Slade…” Dick doesn’t let up, continuing to meet his gaze. The more they talk, the more he starts to feel on an even keel again. The banter with Slade is familiar, even if the topic isn’t. A temporary bandaid for the distressed chaos still boiling away inside of him, maybe, but he’ll take it.

Slade lets out a sigh, low and familiar. A signal Dick recognises as him giving in, but also wanting to make sure you knew how much of a burden it was for him to do so (and Slade calls _him_ dramatic).

“Long story short, after I figured out I couldn’t die, and that I wasn’t ageing anymore, I ended up travelling the world.” Slade says. “Seven hundred years is a long time, don’t think there’s a single place on this planet I haven’t been now. I took jobs here and there, enough to keep me in coin, and occasionally met up with others of our kind. Enough for me to get my own answers the same as you’re doing now.”

‘In coin’. Something about that phrase sounds so antiquated, and beneath the American drawl of Slade’s voice, Dick almost fancies he can hear hints of another accent. Though if he does, it’s almost certainly because Slade is letting it slip on purpose. “Why didn’t you stay with them?”

“Let’s just say we have different priorities.” Slade says, waving a hand, which is Slade code for ‘I think they’re assholes’, and Dick is wise enough in this moment to let him leave it at that. “I came to America a few times after its ‘discovery’. Only wound up staying long term after World War II, though.”

Dick has no idea what long term might constitute to an immortal, but he’s guessing it means having the country more or less as his homebase the past, what, _seventy_ years now? “Why?”

Slade tilts his head at him. “Thought I was giving the abridged version?” Then at Dick’s imploring look, snorts. “What can I say, always liked the place. One of the few countries on Earth still with some wilderness left, not to mention real opportunity. Plus, by that time commercial air travel was becoming a thing. No longer meant a trip of weeks or months if I wanted to visit anywhere else.”

Of course, Dick thinks. Slade doesn’t like being trapped. It’s one of the things they have in common; a need to know there’s always the option for movement and freedom, even if they don’t mean to use it at the time. “You fought in the war?”

“I fought in a lot of wars.”

“On America’s side?”

“On whichever side I liked best.” Slade snorts. “But if you’re talking about World War II, then yes, kid, I fought on America’s side. I was not a fucking Nazi.”

Dick’s ears burn. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t think you would be.” Slade is still giving him an unimpressed look, so Dick hurriedly pushes on. “So then, Wintergreen? Adeline? The experiment?”

Slade settles back, like a cat letting down its hackles. If barely. “Most of that happened the way you already know, except my motivation for the experiment. Already knew it wouldn’t kill me, and figured I might walk away with a few extra benefits if it worked. Spoiler, it did. I got stronger, faster, and I now had a believable excuse to those around me about why I didn’t appear to be getting any older.”

There’s a lot there Slade isn’t saying, Dick thinks, but he’s too much of a mess himself right now to begin puzzling it out. “And it turned your hair white.”

“Yes, kid, because that’s the most important thing.” Slade replies, with potent sarcasm. “It turned my hair white.”

“Just thinking, I’m really going to have to step up my old man jokes after this.” Dick quips in return.

“Try it and see how fast I leave you to handle the rest of this on your own.” Slade retorts tartly, but without the actual acid edge that would make Dick believe he really means the threat. “Now, any other stupid questions?”

Only about a billion of them, and none of them stupid, as far as Dick’s concerned. “How many others are there? Immortals like us?”

Slade breathes in heavily through his nose. “At my last count, six others. The two of us make eight total.”

That’s so much fewer than Dick expected. But then again, if there were more, they probably wouldn’t still be so well hidden from the rest of the world’s knowledge. “So I’m guessing people like Vandal Savage and Ra’s al Ghul don’t count.”

“No.” Slade answers, confirming Dick’s suppositions from earlier. “Ra’s cheats, and Savage is something else entirely.”

Dick sucks on his teeth, then— “Jason!”

“Hm?”

Suddenly gripping the sleeve of Slade’s uniform, Dick tugs at his arm unnecessarily, heart rate spiking with the sudden epiphany. “My brother! Jason came back from the dead and none of us know how he did it. Is he one of us, too?”

Slade allows the contact, not shaking it off. His expression doesn’t change, though, and Dick feels his stomach tighten with disappointment even before he says, “No. I don’t know how your brother managed to beat death, but he’s not one of us. I think you’d have noticed by now if he was. Rapid healing, remember?”

Right. Of course. Dick has seen Jason injured so many times since he came back, and every time he never healed faster than a normal human would. At least not in any noticeable way.

He had, just for a moment, hoped that he wouldn’t be alone in this. That there would be someone other than Slade, a family member, who could understand what he’s going through. But no. No, his luck is never that good. Especially recently, when it seemed like any time he dared so much as breathe life was ready and waiting to screw him over.

First Haly’s, then the mess with the Joker, losing Damian... followed by this evil Crime Syndicate version of the Justice League showing up from another universe to out his identity to the world because of Owlman’s obsession with him, followed finally by—

“Kid,” Slade says again, and Dick blinks open eyes he hadn’t even realised he’d closed to see he’s still holding tight onto Slade’s arm.

Immediately, he lets go. “Sorry.” Resituating his hands in his lap, Dick nervously wrings them together. “So what now?”

“Now?” Slade grunts, leaning backwards and stretching his arms out in front of him, like an oversized jungle cat. “Now we get out of here.”

“We what?” It’s a more concrete answer to what Dick had meant as an existential question than he expected.

“I paid off the kid at the front desk to make sure the rooms around this one were empty,” Slade says, standing, “But that’s still your blood on the floor.”

Without thinking, Dick looks back down at the carpet, the dark drying stain there, as well as the warped metal shapes of two spent bullets, and rapidly feels himself growing green around the gills again. “And whose fault is that?” he says, trying to snap the words out, but more likely stammering them.

With one foot, Slade pushes the trash can back over to him. “I’ve got a safehouse not far away. It’s a better place than here for you to finish wrapping your head around this.”

“I don’t…” Determined not to use it, Dick forces down the surge of queasiness. “I can’t. I have a mission.”

“You really think that matters anymore?”

“Of course it does.” Dick answers quickly. “I promised Bruce. I—”

“You mean the man I’m guessing convinced you to keep playing dead to the rest of the world?” Slade drawls knowingly, making Dick’s face flush. “Does the rest of your family even know, or just him?”

“Slade,” Dick says warningly, trying to ignore how much that reminder stings. Lying to his brothers, his friends…

“Now’s not the time to be playing the good son, kid.”

“It’s important.”

“And this isn’t?” Slade looks at him as he adjusts his gauntlets unnecessarily. “Your life’s been turned upside down in more ways than one. Some of which you haven’t even thought of yet. You go into any mission like this and you’re bound to make a mess of it.”

“Like you’re doing this because you care about my ability to be professional on the job.” Dick finally manages to stand up from the bed, squaring his shoulders and clenching his hands into fists at his sides.

Slade looks unimpressed. “You’re right, I don’t.”

“Then why?” Dick’s not about to let him get away without an explanation, even as a small voice inside of him begs to know what unthought of consequences Slade is talking about.

“Because I’m not about to let you go spilling an aeons old secret because you don’t know how to hide it yet.”

That’s good, but it’s not quite the heart of the matter, Dick thinks, as he takes unsteady steps towards him. “Not buying it, Slade. You already have your own cover for your powers. Try again.”

Slade doesn’t move as he gets closer, watching Dick as he skirts round the mess of his own blood on the floor, closer and closer, until finally he has to crane his neck up to keep looking him in the eye. “You’ve got blood on your face.”

And on his back and stomach, staining his shirt. Dick grimaces, “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Slade’s mouth twists in that displeased way again. “You really going to make me say what you already know?”

“I think right now, I need you to.” Dick answers shakily.

“Kid…”

“You shot me, Slade.”

“You’re going to bring that up anytime you want something now, aren’t you?” Slade grouses. But before Dick can say anything else, Slade lifts one big hand and curls it around the back of his neck, causing him to shudder reflexively and lean into the touch.

It’s nice, heavy. Grounding. Like an anchor in a sea of uncertainty, tying him to the shore. Especially when Slade squeezes his fingers lightly, digging them down into the spaces between Dick’s vertebrae.

“I like you, kid,” he says finally, bluntly, and from anyone else, that might be next to nothing, but from Slade it’s closer to the whole world. “And this immortality business, good as it might seem from the offset, there’s a price to it. One you haven’t thought about yet, but when you do it’ll break you. It’ll rake you open from the inside out. I may not be the best of people, but I like to think you and I have an understanding. Especially now. And it’s better it happen to you around me than a bunch of potentially hostile strangers as a part of whatever foolhardy mission Wayne wants you running.”

“You’re hostile.” Dick says, eyes half closing for a moment even as his mind starts to race with trying to think what the price Slade was referring to is.

“Only when you’re opposing me on a job, and that’s not happening right now, is it?”

“No.” Minutely, Dick shakes his head before swallowing. “Slade, what is—”

“Later, not here. Your head’s already spinning enough. I’d like us to be somewhere secure before the thought occurs to you.”

“You being evasive about this really isn’t doing much to reassure me.”

“Good, that’s the point.” Slade is unrepentant. When Dick continues to hesitate, he adds, “Just give it a couple days, kid. Wrap your head around this, then if you still want to go play hero for the Bat, I won’t stop you.”

Dick swallows. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t, and yet…

And yet his hands are still trembling. His mind is awhirl with confused and worrying thoughts. In the last hour alone, he’s recovered twice from injuries that should have killed him, and realised that what he thought were only strange dreams are actually psychic connections to the pasts of others just like him. And Slade, one of his oldest enemies, and strangest almost friends, is also not who he thought he was. That he and Dick now share a common bond over something he never could have imagined would ever happen to him.

What will Bruce say, when he tells him? Should he tell him? Will he even be able to hide it, if he tries? Injuries are so commonplace in their lives. One day he will get hurt badly enough that Bruce will insist he see a doctor in front of him, and on that day his wounds will close before Leslie or Alfred can get to them, and then—

Slade is right, he realises. Right now, he’s in too much shock to be much good to anyone or anything. If he walks into Spyral as he is, he’s going to make a goddamn mess of things, wasting all the hard work Bruce put in to give him the opportunity to infiltrate them in the first place. He just wants to close his eyes and leave the world behind for a little while. More than that, he wants to go _home_. But he can’t go home, everyone there thinks he’s dead. Really dead. Bruce made him promise and Dick can’t disappoint him. He...

Looking up at Slade again, Dick finds himself numbly nodding. “Two days, Slade. That’s all.”

Slade’s fingers squeeze down on his neck again. It feels almost like a reward. “Fair enough, kid.”

“He’s going to ask questions.”

“Then lie to him. I know you’re good at that.” The hand slides from Dick’s neck, but not without trailing fingers across his skin and through the back of his hair first. “Now pick up your bag and pass me your keys, we’re taking your car.”

“What about the blood?” Dick asks, doing just that on automatic.

“Nothing a little extra bribe and threats won’t fix.” Slade watches him a moment from the door. “Trust me, kid. This is going to be all right.”

And the strangest thing is, Dick does. He trusts him, Despite the bullets. Despite everything.

He doesn’t have any other choice.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/)


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